It is [only] eleven days’ journey from Horeb (Mount Sinai) by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea [on Canaan’s border; yet Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years before crossing the border and entering Canaan, the promised land].

‘Let me pass through your land [with my people]. I will travel [with them] only on the highway; I will not turn away to the right or to the left.

You will sell me food for money so that I [along with my people] will eat, and you will give me water for money so that I [along with my people] will drink; only let me [and my people] travel through [the land] on foot,

We took only the cattle as plunder for ourselves and the spoil of the cities which we had captured.

Only you did not go near the land of the sons of Ammon, all along the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the Lord our God had forbidden us.

(For only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the [the giants known as the] Rephaim. Behold, his bed frame was a bed frame of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? It was nine cubits (12 ft.) long and four cubits (6 ft.) wide, using the cubit of a man [the forearm to the end of the middle finger].)

‘O Lord God, You have only begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth that can do such works and mighty acts (miracles) as Yours?

“Only pay attention and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your grandchildren [impressing these things on their mind and penetrating their heart with these truths]—

Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form—there was only a voice.

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one [the only God]!

He humbled you and allowed you to be hungry and fed you with manna, [a substance] which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you understand [by personal experience] that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

Only you shall not eat the blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water.

Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life (soul), and you shall not eat the life with the meat.

However, you shall take your holy things which you have [to offer] and your votive (pledged, vowed) offerings, you shall take them and go to the place which the Lord will choose.

if only you will listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all these commandments which I am commanding you today.

Only you shall not eat its blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water.

“A single witness shall not appear in a trial against a man for any wrong or any sin which he has committed; [only] on the testimony or evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be confirmed.

Only the trees which you know are not fruit trees shall you destroy and cut down, so that you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

You shall certainly let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

“However, if the man finds the girl who is engaged (legally betrothed) in the [open] field, and seizes her and is intimate with her [by force], then only the man who lies with her shall be put to death.

“The fathers shall not be put to death for [the sins of] their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; [only] for his own sin shall anyone be put to death.

The Lord will make you the head (leader) and not the tail (follower); and you will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listen and pay attention to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today, to observe them carefully.

and you will be groping at noon [in broad daylight], just as the blind grope in the darkness, and nothing you do will prosper; but you will only be oppressed and exploited and robbed continually, with no one to save you.

A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all the products of your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and exploited and crushed continually.

“It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath,